


your eyes close as i fall asleep

by sagemb



Series: a planet off its axis [2]
Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Grief/Mourning, M/M, Post-Avengers: Infinity War Part 1 (Movie), Weddings, a disillusioned centenarian, can be read as a stand-alone, steven g. rogers versus the universe
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-09-08
Updated: 2018-09-08
Packaged: 2019-07-08 17:46:59
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,511
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15935288
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sagemb/pseuds/sagemb
Summary: If there was a God, he had to be one sick son of a bitch.





	your eyes close as i fall asleep

If there was a God, he had to be one sick son of a bitch.

 

* * *

 

_In this moment, your hand on the soft loose earth, you are no longer a soldier. You're not his lover either, anymore. You're a widower and these are his scattered ashes. You have lived a hundred years for this. And in the end, waking up, trekking across dimensions to find him again— waiting for him, fighting for him, killing for him— everything was pressurizing like a dying star down to this moment and_

_it_

_wasn't_

_worth_

_it._

 

* * *

 

"Oh god," Steve said.

 

* * *

 

Rhodes was bending down to pick up Vision's drained, gray body, but something in Steve made him rasp out, "No, let me."

The body was heavier than he expected; stiff, too, as if machine parts were capable of rigor mortis. As a group, the Avengers walked back to the terrain hovercraft that had brought them to the border, where the remaining Wakandan forces had already boarded and were waiting, listless, for them to arrive.

Less than half the seats were filled. Steve hitched Vision's body higher on his shoulders and felt himself staggering under the weight of regret.

 

* * *

 

 _Tell me this isn’t the end of the line,_ he begged.

 

* * *

 

One of the palace guards led him to his guest quarters, and as soon as the door was shut behind him, Steve lay down on the bed and didn't move for fifteen hours. He found himself awake but drifting, holding onto the vague impression that he was not alone in bed; if he reached his arm out, there would be Bucky's warm torso. Bucky asleep was nothing like Bucky frozen in cryo: he'd sprawl himself across the mattress and kick at you every so often, even drool into your hair if you were lucky. And Steve had been young and fortunate enough to have those small interminable blessings, once upon a time, in Brooklyn.

But now he unstuck his gaze from the ceiling and found the bed empty.

He stood up. He felt dizzy and sick, so he left the room before he could feel like the walls were closing in on him.

Natasha was sitting cross-legged in the hall, busy peeling the rind off a small purple fruit. Her hands faltered when he emerged, but she didn't look up at him.

"Head count," he said. "Who's left?"

Her nails dug into the meat of the fruit, clenching and unclenching. Juice spurted and ran down her wrists and into her sleeves.

"Natasha?" he asked, gentling his tone.

No answer.

"Nat, this isn't the time for us to stop talking to each other."

She looked at him, her face like a smooth, flat stone. Through missions and years they've been at each other's sides, but he's never seen her like this. A hollow doll, a blank slate.

"I'm going to check on the others. Do you want to come with me?" He proffered his hand to her.

After an endless moment, she took it.

 

* * *

 

Natasha, Thor, Rhodes, Bruce, Shuri, Okoye, a few Dora Milaje, and the raccoon.

There was a room full of those who were left, and Steve wanted to know why it was them and not others. If it had been random, who had done the randomizing; why this half and not the other? Whatever force had that power was clearly the de facto God, and in that case there would be precedent for this kind of dispassionate action— the Old Testament was full of examples, to say the least.

 _What a sick son of a bitch,_ Steve thought, not for the first time, and found that he didn’t give a damn who God was.

"Any word from Stark?" he asked.

"Not yet," said Rhodes.

"He went to space to protect the Time Stone," Bruce said, voice dull. "Thanos came to Earth with the Time Stone and wiped out half the universe."

Rhodes's jaw clenched. "That doesn't mean he's dead."

"It's a likelihood," said Bruce.

"It's not an assumption I can make," said Rhodes, and he was angry, and Bruce was quiet.

"We need a plan of action," Steve said. "In the best possible form that might take— relief efforts for the remaining world population, at the very least. Or a strategy for a second stand."

"Thanos has all six stones," Thor pointed out. "And we cannot begin to know where he is."

“Then we find out,” Steve told him. “We have allies all over the known universe.”

By the end of the meeting, Shuri had begun to hyperventilate and had to leave the room, and Natasha's one and only word spoken had been "why?" and Bruce had slammed a fist into the table and bruised his knuckles, and Thor had stopped speaking, and Rhodes had not stopped looking angry. But through it all, Steve said, "We're undoing this," and no one said no.

 

* * *

 

They weren’t gone, Steve decided. Not really. Just absent from the fold of reality, hidden away somewhere. He could feel most everyone’s weight on his back: Sam, Wanda, Vision, T’Challa. Tony. The other three and a half billion souls. But Bucky was tucked into the curve of Steve’s rib, nestled there, caged between heart and bone. Steve could not get him out.

_You there, old friend? Come back to me._

 

* * *

 

“We really fucked this up,” Natasha said, sitting on her bed in her room.

“That’s why moving forward’s our only option,” said Steve. “Gotta keep moving to get everyone back.”

She nodded, clearly knowing this, these flimsy words of encouragement, but the planes of her face grew softer. “Yeah,” she said, head ducking into her folded-up knees. “Yeah.”

“Get some rest,” he told her; her face was chalky and her eyes red-rimmed. She nodded again and settled back against the mattress.

He was halfway to the door when he heard her say, “Stay here.” So he tugged back the covers on the bed and got in and wrapped himself around her body, which was solid and familiar from years of sharing hotel rooms and safe houses.

He slept, possibly for the first time in days.

 

* * *

 

On something like the twenty-seventh day After, Rhodes got a call from Pepper.

“Tony’s alive,” he said, so evidently even the universe itself understood who was, by nature, an impossible survivor.

 

* * *

 

Tony and Pepper were married in a very small, very simple ceremony. Less than twenty people were in attendance, although this was not including one or two robots, since DUM-E was the ringbearer. The reception had an equally sparse quality, the fact that there were people missing all-too-conspicuous.

On the sunny grounds behind the Avengers compound, the newly-wedded Starks fed each other cake messily and lovingly. They had matching crow's feet when they smiled at each other, and Steve thought of Bucky with a good, hard ache.

_What do you say when you come back we have something like this ourselves, pal? You loved dancing— do you still? Tell you what, I'll take you for a spin if you want, just for you, special one-time offer._

But of course by the end of the night, Natasha had managed to drag him onto the dance floor, leading him in a waltz that was exceptionally lopsided, skill-level wise. It was all right, he thought, if it could make her happy.

He found himself standing together with Tony as people began heading inside to the guest wing for the night. Tony had loosened his tie, and indeed everything about him seemed relaxed as his gaze tracked Pepper across the yard.

"Good day?" Steve asked.

"Best in my life," Tony said.

Steve hummed. "I had a good time."

"Even in these times." It wasn't a question, and for a moment tiredness warred with the happy lines on Tony's face.

"Even in these times," Steve agreed, because historically, he and Tony had agreed more often than not, except when they disagreed fantastically.

"We should do this again when everyone's back. Make it a big affair. Press, photos. I'll get a permit to shut down Fifth Avenue, make Pepper walk down _that_ aisle."

Steve chuckled. "Got a lot to do before we get to that."

"Yeah, still fighting the good fight. Meeting tomorrow?"

"Sorry to interrupt your honeymoon."

Tony waved a hand. "Tonight's enough. Be a nice wedding present if we could get the other half of the universe back, though."

“You ever think about if that’s what it wants?” Steve blurted out. “Not that it particularly matters, just, I wonder sometimes.”

Tony was looking at him quizzically. “You think the universe is sentient?”

“I don't know,” said Steve. “It's got a pretty messed up sense of humor sometimes. Or God does, maybe, I don't know.”

“The universe didn't do this,” said Tony. “Favoring entropy isn't favoring death over life inherently. It doesn't have the mind to care. One man did this, and he isn't a god.”

“Just a big old purple sonofabitch,” Steve said, vehemently enough that it startled both of them into laughing. He had not laughed this way in a long time.

 

* * *

 

_I love you. Wait for me._

 

 

 

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks as always to zachas for beta and support.
> 
> Title from Neruda's Sonnet XVII.
> 
> You can find me on Tumblr as [3wworms](http://3wworms.tumblr.com).


End file.
